Hot Topics:

Baby Doe Tabor froze to death at the Matchless Mine

By Kenneth Jessen

Posted:
10/20/2011 08:16:30 PM MDT

During the summer months, the Matchless Mine is open to the public. A docent provides the timeless story of Baby Doe Tabor. (Kenneth Jessen)

More has been written about Horace Austin Warner Tabor and his first and second wives than any other Colorado historical figure. This incredible story ends up at the Matchless Mine just outside the Leadville City limits.

Horace Tabor married his boss's daughter, Augusta. Tabor, his wife and small son moved to Denver in 1859 to be counted among the first gold seekers. With a wagon drawn by an ox, the quest for gold drove the Tabors to a site near present-day Idaho Springs. Augusta was the first woman at this place and spent her time selling pastries and bread.

If You Go

Mine: Matchless Mine.

Where: Lake County; Matchless Mine located outside of Leadville; take East Seventh Street.

What: Surface buildings are open in the summer with a docent on duty.

Their next adventure was south to Colorado Springs and over Ute Pass. The Tabors were, in fact, the first pioneers to take a wagon over the pass. They traveled to the Arkansas River then upstream to Kelley's Bar, one of the very first settlements in the area. Horace panned gold at Cache Creek to the north, but the black sand mixed with the gold made recovery of the precious metal difficult.

They heard about a new gold field farther to the north in California Gulch. They arrived at the site of Oro City in May 1860. At the time, the miners had run out of food and faced starvation. The Tabors slaughtered their ox and divided the meat among the camp.

In 1862 after the placer gold was exhausted, the Tabors moved over the mountains into South Park and settled in Buckskin Joe (west of Alma). They opened a grocery store, which was to be the first of a number of Tabor-owned stores. Horace Tabor spent his time prospecting while Augusta ran the store and raised their son. Horace was elected to the school board and also served as postmaster.

When the placer gold was exhausted, the Tabors moved back to Oro City where underground mining had produced a second boom. In 1868, Horace was appointed postmaster in Oro City, and Augusta opened up a store using the stock from their store in Buckskin Joe.

A new settlement formed about one-half mile from the old site of Oro City. In 1877, Horace must have seen its potential and opened a new store at the site. It was a wise move since this new town was Leadville, and it outgrew all other mining towns in Colorado. A post office was set up in Tabor's new store.

One Monday morning in 1878, a couple of German immigrants walked into the Tabor store and asked for a grubstake. This was not an uncommon event since Tabor had given grubstakes to many prospectors. They outlined their plan for Tabor and demonstrated good knowledge in prospecting. Tabor provided the men with picks and shovels, food for a week plus a jug of whiskey.

On May 15, 1878, the men struck carbonate ore containing 200 ounces of silver to the ton. The mine was given the name the Little Pittsburg. The grubstake agreement cost Tabor all of $60 and it gave him a third interest in the claim. By the end of the summer, each man was $10,000 richer. Denver banker David Moffat teamed up with Tabor and purchased the entire claim.

The ore body in the Little Pittsburg was exhausted after two years, but the property had produced nearly $2 million. Tabor wisely sold his share in the mine for $1 million. The Chrysoite, Tabor's second mine, did just about as well for him financially.

Tabor purchased the Matchless mine for $117,000 and spent another $30,000 in legal fees to establish its title. The mine was thought to be worthless. A new superintendent soon discovered a rich ore body with staggering return of $2,000 a day. One shipment alone contained 10,000 ounces of silver to the ton, valued at little over a dollar per ounce. For Tabor, mining silver ore was the next best thing to printing money.

Everything changed when a 25-year-old divorcee named Elizabeth Bonduel McCourt Doe, better known as Baby Doe, came to Leadville.

When Horace and Baby Doe met there was immediate chemistry. For a while, Horace and Baby Doe met discretely. After he moved out of his home, Tabor tried to get a divorce from Augusta, but she refused. Instead of waiting, Horace and Baby Doe were secretly married in St. Louis in 1882.

When Augusta discovered his marriage, the divorce that followed cost him half of his $9 million estate. (Converted into today's value, this was about $180 million.) Augusta came away with a tidy sum and as for Horace, he got Baby Doe.

Tabor was elected to lieutenant governor of Colorado, but had higher political ambitions -- he wanted to become a United States senator. When Sen. Henry Teller vacated his position, Tabor used his money and influence to get an appointment to fill out Teller's term. Tabor served as a senator for one month -- Feb. 3 to March 4, 1883. News of Tabor's infidelity and bigamy became public knowledge, ending his political career.

The magic touch that brought Horace Tabor fame and fortune did not last. His rich mines played out, but he kept on investing in other mines that ultimately proved worthless. After the silver crash of 1893, his fortunes vanished. His last piece of property was sold at auction in 1897 to pay off a mortgage.

At the age of 69, Tabor passed away in Denver's Windsor Hotel from appendicitis. At the time, he was Denver's postmaster with a salary of $3,500 a year. The source of much of the Tabor's wealth came from the Matchless Mine, and Baby Doe tried to raise the money to buy it back. Probably out of pity, the owners allowed her to live in the supply cabin next to the shaft house.

For over three decades, Baby Doe Tabor lived in abject poverty at well over 10,000 feet. During the winter of 1935, she broke a trail through the deep snow and walked the mile or so to a grocery store in Leadville. Her feet were wrapped in gunny sacks and she wore a terribly torn old black dress. A delivery truck took her back toward the Matchless getting as close as the driver could manage. Baby Doe got out, waved good-bye to the driver and trudged back to her shack carrying her groceries.

Her closest neighbor watched out for the old woman. After several days, she didn't see smoke coming from the chimney of Baby Doe's shack. The neighbor got help and when the cabin was reached, Baby Doe was found frozen to death, stretched out stiff on the floor. When Baby Doe's estate was settled it consisted of no money and only trunks of personal items stored in a Denver warehouse.

Kenneth Jessen has been a Loveland resident since 1965. He is an author of 18 books and more than 1,300 articles. He was an engineer for Hewlett-Packard for 33 years and now works as a full-time author, lecturer and guide.

This is the interior of the cabin where Baby Doe Tabor froze to death in 1935, living in poverty after having been one of the wealthiest women in Colorado.
(Kenneth Jessen)

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.